This study seeks to critically explore the link between sovereignty, violence and war in Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer series and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. From a brief rereading of Leviathan’s main arguments that explicitly revolves around the Aristotelian distinction between actuality/ potentiality, it will conclude that Hobbesian pre-contractual violence is primarily based on what Hobbes terms “anticipatory reason” and the problem of future contingency. Relying on Foucauldian insights, it will be emphasized that the assumption of certain potentialities suffices in leading to (...) Hobbes’s well-known conclusion that the state of nature is a “condition of Warre.” In a second step, this study considers some of Agamben’s arguments to account for how pre-contractual violence as envisioned by Hobbes cannot be rendered impotent through the integration of a sovereign. In specific, Agamben’s claims shed light on an irreducible, inextricable entwining between the state of nature and the state of law as “Siamese twins” (Virno). On a meta-level, Agamben thus implicitly shows how the “Hobbesian problem” cannot be merely reduced to a “problem of order” (Parsons). With regard to the current functioning of the stratagems of financial markets and the mechanisms of future-colonization underpinning global politics, this study finally argues that Hobbes ought to be reevaluated in particular regarding the problem of the future in his account. Partly responding to Agamben’s critical investigations, I suggest that a careful exploration of what will be coined “the prospects of an actualization of the potentiality not-to-be” might serve as a first theoretical step towards a productive form of criticism. (shrink)

G. W. Leibniz is usually not regarded as a political philosopher. However, despite this prevailing opinion, Leibniz’ impact on political theory is valuable. The paper discusses Leibniz in the context of the history of the concepts of “sovereignty” and “federation”, and demonstrates that Leibniz presents an original interpretation of these concepts. Even though Leibniz’ attention to the problem of sovereignty is conditioned by the practical interests of his patron, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and Leibniz’ own intentions to participate in international (...) negotiations, Leibniz’ theoretical solution is no less original. Leibniz, in his attempt to defend the independence of imperial princes, creates an alternative to Jean Bodin’s theory of absolute sovereignty, and argues that sovereignty is compatible with divisibility. In demonstrating the possible coexistence of several centers of power, Leibniz makes the notion of sovereignty relative, which, however, does not force him into rejecting the notion entirely. The article discusses the historical context framing the appearance of the Leibniz’ doctrine, the reasons why Leibniz is critical of Bodin’s theory, and the innovations introduced by his approach. Based on Leibniz’ texts Codex Juris Gentium and Caesarinus Fürstenerius, the paper analyzes the development of his theory, and shows how power is divided between the Emperor and the princes. The paper raises the questions of how Leibniz’ interests are similar to those of contemporary political theorists in trying to reevaluate the notion of sovereignty, of which model of federation Leibniz prefers, and of how his political ideas are connected with his metaphysical system. (shrink)

In the second of ten Lectures on Political Right, delivered in Madrid’s Ateneo in November 29, 1836, Juan Donoso Cortés considers the notion of “popular sovereignty.” Distinguishing mind and will as two parts of human essence, Donoso deduces from the former the “law of the association” that unites all human beings, and from the latter, the “law of the individual,” that separates them. Hence, the main problem for Donoso as a liberal conservative is how to combine these two laws. Donoso (...) states that while traditionalists propose to focus on the “law of the association” and ends with tyranny that destroys free will, revolutionaries, by contrast, focus on the “law of the individual,” which leads to anarchy as a variant of the same tyranny. In making a historical digression to the periods of the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, Donoso shows how the revolutionary idea of “popular sovereignty”, linked directly to the “law of the individual”, gradually overcomes the idea of “divine right of kings”, based on the “law of the association.” Donoso criticizes the English and French philosophers of the 17–18th centuries the most, as these philosophers laid the foundation for historical drama of the Great French Revolution. Offering his own liberal-conservative alternative for the two named extremes, Donoso calls to abandon the “atheist”, “immoral”, “absurd”, and “impossible” “popular sovereignty”, and combine the “law of the individual” and the “law of the association” on entirely different basis of the “sovereignty of reason, sovereignty of justice”. (shrink)

The article is a companion text to the first Russian translation of the fragment of Max Weber’s fundamental study The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism. The article presents a brief history of this work first published 100 years ago. Weber’s book is analyzed as an integral part of his study of the genesis of Western rationalism. The author puts the thesis forward that the publication of a theoretical work on Confucianism marks a shift in Weber’s research interest, from the (...) study of Protestant sectarian ethics in Europe to the universal, historical research of world civilizations. Furthermore, author demonstrates the close connection between the problems of the sociology of religion and the sociology of domination within Weber’s conceptual framework. The article also shows that the latter, in its turn, forms the sociology of rationalism because its main cognitive interest constantly revolves around the question of the extent to which religious and ethical worldviews are influence, through the practical orientation of their agents, the socio-structural evolution of societies, whose rationality is so different from Western capitalist and legal rationality. In the main section of the paper Weber’s reconstructed understanding of Confucianism is outlined as a type of practically-oriented secular rationalism which is not properly a “religious ethic” because of the absence in it of such ideas as sin, radical evil, and the related problem of theodicy. The article concludes with the thesis of persisting heuristic importance of Weber’s study of ancient Chinese doctrines which formed a unique rational and practical attitude to the world as a form of adaptation to it. (shrink)

The review analyses the international conference “Christian Monasticism from East to West: Monastic Traditions and Modernity in Europe”, organized in June 2015 by sociologists and theologians from the Universities of Graz, Turin, and Bucharest. The conference initiated a sociological reflection of different monastic traditions, and the role of monasteries in terms of the decline of trust in religious institutions. It raised the question of the dynamics of monasticism as a traditional institution in modern societies, not only in Europe, but also (...) in Asia, Africa, and America. The scholarly discussion paid particular attention to the adaptation and resistance of religious traditions to social changes. Researchers from different countries have demonstrated the innovative potential of monasticism in the economic sphere, the cultural sphere, and the religious sphere. Alongside traditional roles, monasteries have acquired new social roles. The secularization of the concept of “monasticism”, and its use in relation to the phenomenon of “consuming the tradition” apart from a religious context is stressed. The conference continued to develop the theme of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of religion. The position of a researcher and his or her professional identity, the issues of objectivity, and the idealization of the research subject are analyzed. (shrink)

The main goal of the article is to reconstruct the conceptual bases of the original sociological project contained in David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature. The core of Humean sociology is a meticulously designed doctrine of passions. The foci of the Humean doctrine of passions are the questions of influences observed between the emotional component of human nature and the multiple forms of human actions. According to David Hume, the faculty of imagination, which operates on ideas, is not by itself (...) able to supply a set of regular and uniform practices for an agent. The real foundations for any agent’s habitual form of action are always emotions and passions. The influences of emotions and passions on an agent have various natures: emotions as the primary impressions initiate actions performed by an agent, and passions, as secondary impressions, put these activities into a regular and uniform shape. These very passions define the nature and structure of an agent’s habits, avoiding the traditional logical difficulties in solving the riddle of induction. A habit does not arise as a simple result from the multiple performances of these or that actions, but it is formed by predilections of an agent of activity. Against the backgrounds of a burgeoning interest in contemporary social sciences and a variety of practice-oriented theories and concepts, Humean sociology finds a new theoretical practicality, demonstrating the strength of its arguments and the ability to become a new important source of conceptual intuitions in the social sciences. (shrink)

The article analyzes the properties of sensitive questions and, more broadly, of sensitive situations in unstructured interviews. Although direct sensitive questions are not typical for unstructured interviews because they can break the flow of communication, there is a quite large class of questions with contextual communicative perspectives that can be correctly considered as conditional/semi-sensitive. In particular, the questions regarding respect for elderly persons are not sensitive enough for informants to avoid answering them, but at the same time, are sufficiently delicate (...) to make informants employ complex excusatory tactics in their answers. This practice supports the well-known thesis that to overcome the questions’ sensitivity, the most effective tactic is “justifying preambles,” which allows the removal of the moral burden either from the informant, or from the circumstances in general. It should be remembered that, via this kind of research, we do not learn the real causes of rule-breaking as much, but rather a practical representation of the norm from the informant’s point of view, as well as a set of legitimate reasons for not following it. Particular attention should be paid to the informative value of sensitivity. For example, we can measure the level of the repression of social norms in specific areas of social life on the basis of the differences in the answers obtained in different ways. (shrink)

Mikhail Bakunin is considered one of the founders of international anarchism and theoreticians of federalism. This paper explores the transformations of the concept of “federalism” in Bakunin’s works from the end of the 1840s until the last years of his life. According to the conventional understanding of the evolution of Bakunin’s ideas, a crucial shift of theoretical views took place in the second half of the 1860s. During the first years of his participation in the revolutionary European movement, Bakunin expressed (...) radical views and was predisposed to direct actions. By the middle of 1860s, he stayed within a broad conceptual framework of European radicalism, and understood federalism as a principle of self-administration and as a form of state system like in the USA or in the Swiss Confederacy. However, by the end of the 1860s, Bakunin shifted to a drastically new understanding of the state. He implicitly narrowed it down to the framework of modernity and identified it with the bureaucratic apparatus. Bakunin also claimed that every form of the state is a form of domination, production, and reproduction of inequality. Bakunin decided that there is principal inconsistency between the concepts of “freedom” and “state,” and argued for the destruction of the latter for the achievement of the former. At that moment, “federalism” was opposite to the state. It called for the destruction of the state apparatus as a system of dominance, and was a political form of socialism and the anarchic community. On the next step of his evolution, Bakunin introduced the distinction of two types of power: formalized and unformalized. (shrink)

Recently, textual analysis has become quite popular in social sciences in general, and in sociological studies in particular, partly due to the “narrative turn” that emphasizes the textual nature of all social practices and legitimizes their explanations through discourses that constitute social reality and identification models in contemporary society. Though content analysis has long ago proved its methodological and technical relevance to solve sociological questions in providing both qualitative and quantitative data about discursively structured social reality, the modern popularization of (...) textual analysis within sociology is associated with two vague and multifaceted approaches, those of narrative and discourse analysis. The article first outlines the three types of sociological data the researchers have to deal with: formalized data that can be arranged in different matrices and analyzed mathematically; weakly formalized, but still structured and organized data; and non-formalized data that supposes the application of textual analysis. The author then presents her explanation of the current state of affairs in the use of textual analysis in empirical sociological studies, in which narrative and discourse analysis are often positioned as the only possible research methods to be employed despite several decades of the successful application of content analysis. This explanation consists of two parts: the first section includes a number of strict requirements a researcher must follow while conducting content analysis, while the second consists of the attractive advantages of narrative and discourse analysis as determined by their interdisciplinary status, nature, and origin. (shrink)

The chapter of Max Weber’s The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism analyzes the basic life orientations within Confucian ethics, and their economic implications. The author suggests that since the Chinese civilization had no powerful independent social class of priesthood, its functions were performed by the state bureaucracy. Furthermore, the author points out the absence of natural law and formal juridical logic in Chinese life, which had a significant impact on Chinese legal consciousness. In the main part of the chapter, (...) the author reveals the essence of Confucianism as a type of rational secular ethics. He emphasizes the freedom of metaphysics, and the secular nature of Confucianism. Weber makes the notion of “decency” central to his analysis of the Confucian ethical worldview. He also demonstrates, through the concept of “deference”, the structural identity of personal relationships within the family and the bureaucratic hierarchy. The economic views of Confucian-educated bureaucrats, or the so-called mandarins, is analyzed as based on the strict rejection of any professionalization and specialization. The author emphasizes the positive attitude of Confucianism towards personal wealth and well-being, which was not perceived as an ethical problem. Weber underlines the importance of a classical literary education of potential candidates for responsible positions in the civil service, and the resulting personal benefits. Weber also posits the fundamentally pacifist nature of Confucianism. Weber concludes with the thesis of the absence in Confucianism of any methodical life orientations that characterize the religions of salvation. (shrink)

In the first “Lecture on Political Right,” which was delivered in Ateneo of Madrid in November 22, 1836, Juan Donoso Cortés formulates “general theory of government” and “special mission of representative government.” Defining government as “social action,” Donoso inextricably binds “the idea of society” and “the idea of government.” Considering society as a collection of individuals linked by certain relationships, Donoso formulates two opposite in its effect laws: “the law of the individual,” which determines the independence and freedom of the (...) person, and “the law of association,” associated with subordination and aimed at achieving social harmony. Person’s ability to associate with other people makes him intellectual and free. An intellect as the harmonious principle creates a society; a freedom as the anti-social principle breaks down the society; hence, the government arises by the need to resist the freedom. And the most important idea of the lecture: “For the government to act means to resist”; to resist “the invasion of the human personality,” but, following ethics and “the rule of justice,” in any case not to suppress it completely. Demonstrating the liberal-conservative character of his political ideas, views and values, Donoso encourages young Spanish constitutional monarchy, which just begins to create the foundations of representative democracy, to conserve society and human freedom, to provide their “fruitful unity.”. (shrink)

The article addresses the issue of empirical investigation of individualization in life-course. The theory of individualization implies that the significance of social structure in individual life-course diminishes, giving way to the agency of personal preferences and skills. Thus, the theory raises an issue of structure-agency dynamics in life-course, and poses a methodological challenge for research design to take both social structualization and individual action into account. Empirical research on individualization varies in how it meets this challenge. The review streamlines the (...) main topics, the analytical tools, and the empirical evidence from this research. We identify three main currents in empirical research on individualization. Firstly, the research is concerned with the changing role of agency in life-course, raising a question of its significance vis-. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s concept of freedom is exceptional in contemporary political theory. First, it is positive, which puts it into opposition to the both current versions of its negative counterpart, the liberal, and the republican concepts of freedom. In particular, a comparison between Arendt’s and Pettit’s approaches allows establishing some striking points of antagonistic logical mirroring. Based on this, the notion of “schools of thought” is introduced, which plays an essential role in the subsequent discussion of Arendtian realism. Second, although Arendt’s (...) theory of freedom shares features that are common to the major continental thinkers, like Martin Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze, or Alain Badiou, her solution to the problem of freedom aligns her closer to the liberals. Third, I argue that one should consider this logical irregularity as evidence in favor of her political realism, rather than a trivial inconsistency. This realism is the genuinely exceptional part of her legacy, which may guide us eventually, with modifications applied, to a paradigm shift in the current political philosophy. Finally, I present an evaluation of her solution to the problem of freedom, and a brief follow-up to some seemingly-out-of-place Arendtian notions, such as “excellence” and “elite.” Although in the final analysis, her solution seems to be artificial, it opens up a new promising area of research related to the notion of “benevolent excellence.”. (shrink)

The article examines the “utopian reception,” that is, occurrence and reproduction of the common understanding of the utopian. Attention is paid primarily to the visual experience, that is, the “utopian vision,” which means here a special social skill of the perception and interpretation of space as having being assigned the status of 'utopian'. Thus, a certain inertia of vision encourages the observer to link visual materials produced in the Soviet period to the media construct of “Soviet utopia”. Here, two patterns (...) of spatial description are especially popular, those of “totalitarian place,” and “queer place.” The article focuses on both patterns of “utopian vision” in detail. The first implies intensive rationalization and semiotization of space, while the second implies semantic crash and affectivity. The space is characterized within the former pattern by the metaphor of text, while within the latter by metaphors of night dreams or memory. The author refers to the semiotic, and, at the same time, the spatial analysis of the classic utopia within the framework offered by Louis Marin in 1973, and demonstrates that space perceived by the “utopian view” ceases being social. The reverse side of the imaginary construction of a perfect society is, paradoxically, the blocking of any intersubjective relationships. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the specifics of a workspace in one of the Christian Orthodox organizations in Russia. The sisterhood which I analyze represents the interlacement of religious and economic discourses in the workplace. I discuss the “commodification” of piety which is seen as a professional competency in the labour relations among Orthodox Christians. It is true about the sisterhood, where being “inchurched” is one of the main filters for potential employees. I examine the “politics of labour” in the (...) sisterhood through the analysis of its heterogeneous spatial composition and point at the differences between its spaces in their work tempo, prestige, and working conditions. Alongside economic goals, the sisterhood is aimed at missionary and educational work; however, commercial relations are often described using religious terminology. I discuss the conflict between religious and economic aims of work. Particular attention is given to the analysis of techniques that help to maintain discipline in the sisterhood. It is achieved through rational organization of labour, observability of the workplace, hierarchy in employer-employee relationships, and the disciplining of body and emotions. The analysis is based on the materials of participant observation and field materials collected during my four months as a staff member of the sisterhood. (shrink)

“The Book of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People” is one of the key documents of modern Ukrainian nationalism. It is the most prominent document of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. After N. I. Kostomarov had been arrested at the end of March 1846, he claimed that the seized document was based on “The Books of the Polish People and of the Polish Pilgrimage” by Adam Mickiewicz. This paper compares these two documents and shows the continuity of the Kostomarov work (...) in relation to the writing of Mickiewicz. It also shows the differences which are relevant for the internal logic of the “messianic” philosophy of history and political philosophy. First, in contrast to “The Books of the Polish People and the Polish Pilgrimage,” the main ideas of Pax Christiana are rejected, and the Middle Ages are reconsidered in “The Book of the Genesis” as an age of Christianity’s distortion. Second, in “The Book of the Genesis” there is a purpose to provide a messianic understanding of the Ukraine. Thus, the historical framework is narrowed, and the document provides a universal framework appealing to Slavic nations. It is the Ukraine which can awaken these nations since it latently keeps the principle of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and is able to revive the Commonwealths of Poland and Great Russia. Therefore, “The Book of the Genesis” shows the aspiration for building a national image in terms of Romantic ideas of “historical peculiarity,” and at the same time, clearly indicates the controversies that emerge as a result of following the existing model. (shrink)

In the article the basic provisions of the first of ten “Lectures on Political Right” read in Ateneo of Madrid by outstanding Spanish conservative political philosopher of the 19th century Juan Donoso Cortés in 1836–1837s is conceptualized. In this “Lecture” Donoso formulates his own, as he calls it, “the general theory of government” and focuses on “the mission of the representative government,” defending the young Spanish constitutional monarchy, which turned in a vice between two extremes: the liberal bourgeois revolutionary movement (...) on the left and clerical absolutist movement on the right. In his “Lecture” Donoso opposes two laws: “law of the individual” and “association law,” which in the future should be synthesizes, like Hegel’s opposites, in the “prolific unity.” The “Lecture” contains broad historical generalizations which are an integral feature of Donoso’s philosophical style and can be defined as a philosophy of history. The paper also considers two classic interpretation of the “Lectures” and its arguments proposed by the Spanish political philosophers of the 19–20th centuries, thus solving one of the key question concerning Donoso’s general ideological and value evolution: what type of conservatism he belongs to on the stage of 1836–1837: liberal conservatism or traditionalism? (shrink)

The paper briefly analyzes the main aspects of the genesis of Arendt’s concept of natality, and the reasons that led her to claim natality as a fundamental concept of political thought. 'Natality' is defined as the “biological” birth of the man in the world, and/or the capacity of beginning something new. If the factual birth is defined naturalistically, it can contradict randomness of action as the capacity of beginning something new. The connection between the two aspects of natality goes back (...) to Augustine who was Arendt’s interlocutor throughout all of her research life. The genealogy of natality allows us to subject the problem of participation and the relation of political thought of Arendt to the philosophical criticism of biopolitics. Two definitions of life, natural life, and life in its political measurement, strictly correspond to the two main aspects of natality. Natality is a concept which allows to consider the political to be a function of life. The most probable explanation for paradoxicality of Arendt’s reflections on natality is their messianic orientation, which could be attributed to Arendt’s involvement into the theological subjects via Augustine. The stable relation between birth and possibility of free action arises only in the case of a normal theological ontologization of Christmas. (shrink)

It would not be an exaggeration to assume that the Begriffsgeschichte studies are now spreading through practically all fields of the Humanities. Its initial proposal was to explore the sociopolitical lexicon as a tool for creating history. It paid attention to the idea of untranslatable concepts in particular languages, despite the fact that they often have the same Latin or Greek roots. But the cases where one word is supposed to convey the meaning of the Latin root by using a (...) root original to this given language are still relatively unexplored. Such is the case of the Russian language where the concept of “society” was expressed initially by the word “obshchestvo,” derived from the Slavic root “obshch-,” meaning “common.” From the linguistic point of view, we suggest that the traditional question “When did the word ‘obshchestvo’ obtain its sociopolitical meaning?” should be replaced by the following: “What meaning of this Russian word has become a political one?” To answer this question, we should explore the proper linguistic conditions of this transition. This means finding out how it is possible to linguistically/politically arrive from the constructions like “the community of the wellness” to the patterns of “the thoughts of the society,” “the soul of the society,” or “the suffering society.”. (shrink)

The article discusses various “conspiracy theories,” considering them to be a special frame or paradigm of discourse. This frame considers long-term societal and global trends as consequences of a conspiracy aiming to shift power to its initiators. It has been shown that every “conspiracy theory” presupposes a specific marking of social space that can be viewed as an attachment to the “theatre metaphor.” This specific marking of social space does not occur in private by the founder of the method, but (...) to situations of the public execution of power. This thesis discusses and proves the hypothesis that “conspiracy theories” are becoming functional constructs in crisis situations of a so-called “representative democracy,” in ensuring the legitimacy of a respective political regime, in the perspective of crisis management, and in the initiations of effective political actors. The conclusion is that “conspiracy theories” are rather typical for the late-modernity societies than for the politically archaic contexts. These late modernity societies are characterized by secularization, “public sphere” accessibility, influential media, representation crisis, and “shadow” practices. Additionally, it has been shown that totalitarian political ideologies and regimes can be considered as “conspiracy theories” derivatives, resulting in a valid projection of this specific frame or paradigm of discourse on real political conflicts which emerge from societal or global crises. (shrink)

The article is the first Russian translation of the most well-known piece in conversation analysis, written by the founders of CA Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson. It has become a milestone in the development of the discipline. The authors offer a comprehensive approach to the study of conversational interactions. The approach is based on the analysis of detailed transcripts of the records of natural conversations. The authors show that in the course of the conversation co-conversationalists use a number (...) of techniques to organize the turn-taking. These techniques are combined in four rules: the first option is the transfer of speakership via allocation of the next speaker by the current speaker; if this first option is not realized, turn-taking may happen via the self-selection by one of the participants; if the second option remains unrealized too, the current speaker continues speaking, with all three options being recurrently provided at all next transition relevant places. The result of the operation of these rules is an orderly conversation based on the principle “one speaker at a time.” According to the authors, this model is compatible with obvious observations concerning conversational practices that they make. The authors show that in every conversation there is a turn-taking system in operation, which provides for a flexible adaptation of the every conversation’s structure to any possible topics and any possible speakers’ identities. Such approach considers how the participants in social interactions order their communication with each other, achieving a sense of normally occurring interaction. (shrink)

This preface to the translation of Harvey Sacks, Emmanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson’s paper “A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation” discusses the conceptual and methodological foundations of conversation analysis. It shows that conversation analysis, which embodies the program of primitive natural social science formulated by Harvey Sachs, offers a revolutionary approach to the study of social phenomena, based on detailed analysis of naturally occurring everyday interactions. While remaining closely related to Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, conversation analysis shows (...) how careful and detailed can be sociological descriptions that involve the discovery of general mechanisms of the production of single events of conversation or any other social practice. This approach, however, risks losing the original purpose of studying the local concerted work of mutual understanding by the participants in social situations. The accumulation of the descriptions of general mechanisms of interactions’ production and perception brings the tendency of formalization into conversation analysis: analysts tend to collect the instances and properties of already known “interactional techniques.” The article considers the importance of “Simplest Systematics" in terms of the development of original program of conversation analysis, and discusses the peculiarities of translation of conversation analysis’s key terms into Russian. (shrink)

Durkheim and his followers alerted us to the role of collective representations such as funerals, processions and parades in pre-literate societies. These classic studies, elegant and detailed, have stood the test of time. Goffman has asked whether these events, along with memory and tradition, produce social solidarity in the twenty-first century. Perhaps social solidarity is enacted by such events, rather than reflecting norms, values, and beliefs. If so, how is this new kind of solidarity accomplished over the course of these (...) events? We have few close studies of these modern public events, other than Warner’s classic, the Living and the Dead, and Bellah’s ideas, via Rousseau, of the role of “civic religion.” These ideas are inadequately articulated, given an ethnographic warrant to link structure and function. This paper begins with a description of a funeral of a police officer in 1974, compares this with a police funeral in 2011, and addresses two questions: how are they different? And what do these collective representations tell us about modernity? Are police funerals different from others in the public sphere? The paper uses a semiotic analysis of funerals, police and public, as a window into the features of modern celebrations and processions. Given the relevant codes used to analyze the processions, the differences are salient. The contrast between these processions and their role in social integration in modernity raises the need for future research. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to reveal the modern autoethnographic approach to social research. The review of publications edited since the beginning of the 2000's has shown that autoethnography works as a planned, well-structured confession correlating with the outside world. The essentially open and uncompromising representation of each detail in the author’s personal story related to the subject matter, alongside with his/her shift away from neutrality and organized skepticism in respect of the research issue, establish the principles for an (...) autobiographical approach. The article reflects the peculiarities of modern autoethnographic schools, and describes the methods and techniques of autobiographical writing. There are two trends of autoethnography that are distinguished in Western tradition: evocative autoethnography, which is based on queer theory, and analytical autoethnography, traditionally oriented to conceptual apparatus. The first evocative trend is founded on the metaphors of emotional, authentic, and veracious representations of cultural realities through the autobiographical genre. The second trend, analytical autoethnography, is supported by three research prescriptions: the actual membership in the studied community, and avoidance of understatements, including the unspoken, non-prescribed details of ethnographic work; the desire for theoretical understanding of reality; and the rejection of any authentic reflection of the past. Over the past 20–30 years, there has not been any significant autoethnographic project implemented by the Russian research community appealing to the development of independent theoretical descriptive language. The only exception to the rule is Alexeyev’s so-called "dramaturgical sociology", adjacent to the queer ideology of some Western colleagues. The paper represents a detailed analysis of research innovation embedded by Alexeyev, as well as a logical and theoretical overlapping with the works of foreign authors. (shrink)

University of Moscow Professor Vasily Leshkov constructed a theory of “social law” in the 1850s to provide an alternative theory to “police law”. He intended to go beyond the opposition between private and public law. Following German legal scholars,. He described the sphere of “social law” as a “foundation for self-governance”. At the same time, Leshkov distinguished between political and non-political publicity, and thus showed the compatibility of self-governance with autocracy. His numerous publications in influential Russian magazines indicate the increasing (...) popularity of his views at the end of the 1850–60s. Within the academic system of that time, his ideas belonged to the vague discipline of “police law”. This belonging rapidly changed from the early 1870s when the discipline underwent doctrinal and institutional framing. “Police law” became a part of a conceptual model elaborated by Ivan Andreevskiy, whose debates with Leshkov are analyzed in my paper in order to describe their general views. While Andreevskiy’s model gained prominence, Leshkov’s views gradually became marginalized by the 1890–1910's. The paper describes this process through the analysis of the appropriate teaching materials. (shrink)